An exploration of interrelationships among presence indicators of a community of inquiry in a 3D game-like environment for high school programming courses. Issue 3 (3rd April 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pellas, Nikolaos
• Is Part Of: Interactive learning environments. Volume 25:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 343
• Page End: 360
• Publication Date: 2017-04-03
• Subjects: Constructionism -- open Sim -- secondary education -- Scratch4OS -- virtual community of inquiry; Educational technology -- United States -- Periodicals; 371.33
• DOI: 10.1080/10494820.2015.1127819
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1049-4820

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The combination of Open Sim and Scratch4OS can be a worthwhile innovation for introductory programming courses, using a Community of Inquiry (CoI) model as a theoretical instructional design framework. This empirical study had a threefold purpose to present: (a) an instructional design framework for the beneficial formalization of a virtual community, by utilizing a CoI model which consisted of 81 high school students and (b) the results of linear correlations to amplify the interrelationships among presence indicators (cognitive, social, and teaching) of a CoI model to learn basic programming concepts via a 3D multi-user game-like environment underpinned by Papert's theory of constructionism. The findings indicated that social presence (communication and cohesiveness of a group) had not only a direct correlation with the cognitive presence (learning process for the construction of knowledge), but also had a positive association with teaching presence (organization, planning, and guidance of learning activities), reinforcing them as well.